Little Red Rooster

Matthews (Heart of the Country has set this contemporary coming-of-age novel in suburban Indiana. Fifteen-year-old Burris Weems, who is bright, talkative and admittedly pedantic, decides to dictate his secret thoughts into a stolen tape recorder. His first entries comprise a litany of what is wrong with the world in general and Burris in particular. He is short, he limps, he failed every subject last semester, he shares a tiny house with his chain-smoking mother and sister, and his sex-life is nonexistent. Burris has a realistic teenage voice, and his early, rapid-fire diatribes can be annoying. Things pick up considerably for Burris (and the reader) when he gets a summer job stacking cartons. Befriended by Lee, a co-worker, Lee's wife Diane and Diane's father Genewho, after a sex-change operation, is JeanBurris's world changes dramatically. The suicide of one of his new friends provides the impetus that sends Burris on a funny, harrowing and affecting journey across the U.S. (April 18)